This production of Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist was one of my M.F.A. directing projects at the University of Alberta in 2006.

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Director’s Notes

Besides being tremendously entertaining and informative, Fo’s play is also a critique of social democracy’s tendency to appear open while still managing to resist change. How? In essence: through a form of song and dance. Fo sees scandal as a safety valve through which public pressure – pressure that could be better applied toward effecting real change – can be diverted. Progress is frustrated by a repeated ritual of revelation, followed by public outrage, government “correction”, and public satisfaction. After the dust settles, the public feels it has finally got something done, the government has given the appearance of having done something without having really changed anything, and everybody goes home happy. Each time the play is revived it is adapted to address the topical issues of both the day the country in which it is being produced. In the 80’s it was Iran-Contra in the States, in the 90’s it was the Birmingham Six in Britain, and always and anywhere, American interference and imperialism. As for Canada in 2005? Well, 9/11 goes without saying – and, progress notwithstanding, we are home to what is perhaps one of the smuggest, most blithely comfortable social democracies in the world.

March, 2006

Production History

Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist was my choice for a directing project that was meant to be an exercise in realism. Anyone who knows anything about the play will surely laugh when I say that this was the show on which I learned I wasn’t generally attracted to realism, even if at that point, I thought I was. Lesson learned.